scientists suspect, could trigger another ice
age. What a benign geologic period civiliza
tion has enjoyed!
I enter St. Michael's Cave, a vast cham
ber in the heart of the Rock. A stage has been
built, and the stalagmites are bathed in mul
ticolored lights. The music of Schubert re
sounds in the grand cave. "This is where we
hold all our big events," a guide tells me.
"Concerts, ballet, the Miss Gibraltar con
test." The Rock indeed knows civilization.
If rocks could speak, I wonder what this
one I'm standing in will say about us after
Europe and Africa have closed the strait.
Will it remember Homo sapiens as a master
of dreams and a builder of bridges? Or will it
recall him as a creature, like the dinosaur,
not quite adept enough to live with his envi
ronment? Will it recount how civilization
died out when geology one day suddenly re
voked its consent? Or will it once again shel
ter a few of us, as it did our ancestors in the
past ice age, and thus continue to stand sen
tinel over man's fate?
O